That is amusing! I'm currently looking at a facsimile of Shakespeare's first
folio where "Love's Labour's Lost" is written "Loues Labour's lost" -- my
recollection is that the possessive apostrophe is often omitted in Elizabethan
English, whereas the apostrophe to indicate an ellipsis is often included,
though not always. As Ben Franklin discovered a couple centuries later,
printers/typesetters in England drank throughout the day, but I don't think
that explains away all of the peculiarities. But one can make do without a
good many apostrophes if necessary (though I am not advocating that).
Joel W.
On Jun 5, 2010, at 12:04 PM, Chris Barker <ftog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Excellent, John!
>
> Further to Piers's point a few days ago, I reckon that most of what we are
> losing in the language is important for one reason or another; and there is
> no replacement for the apostrophe ...
>
> It's the number of a subject that's one of my bugbears at the moment: "none",
> "neither" etc ...
>
> Chris
>
> On 5 Jun 2010, at 17:46, JOHN DUGGAN wrote:
>
>> As an example of why the possessive apostrophe is still a necessity, Simon
>> Carr's political sketch has no equal. he wrote,
>> "Peter Lilley's wife tried to get into a Downing Street function saying,
>> 'I'm one of the ministers' wives', The policeman: 'I couldn't let you in if
>> you were the minister's only wife'." It's wonderful, but without the
>> possessive apostrophe it would have been rendered meaningless.
>
> --
> _________________________________________________________________
> Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
> Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
> Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
>
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|